Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: MIrror Image chapter 9

Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapter for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

In our last chapter we lost the character I wanted to see more of. Kind of annoyed, because we’re still stuck with the main cast.

Now we hit a chapter that going into it I’m concerned about the reaction to, because it’s at the Russian/Ukraine boarder. If you’re in the future and wondering why I’m concerned, check the posting date and think about what was going on at the boarder at the time. For those of you in the present, remember that this book came out in 1995, so it should be interesting to see in 2024 what they predicted and what they ended up being wrong on. If memory serves, these take place slightly into the future.

For the record I am not a geopolitical expert nor a military strategist. I am a storyteller and reviewer. I don’t know why then or now Russia would be so interested in getting Ukraine back when reforming the USSR as a top priority outside of it’s being right next door and they owned it before. All I know before starting this chapter is that Commie Op-Center must be interested in drawing Ukraine into this for whatever reason they have. Maybe we’ll learn something and maybe we won’t. We’re about to find out as we jump into this next chapter. These being big novels we aren’t even a quarter into the book yet. This is going to go into the new year, isn’t it? Not really the type of story I wanted to be reviewing into Christmas, but that’s my scheduling problem. With that, let’s read.

Sunday, 9 PM, Belgorod, the Russian/Ukraine boarder

Dogin meets with two more conspirators: General Mikhail Kosigan and mobster Dmitri Shovich. Together they have come up with a plan to make it look like Ukraine attacked the Polish Communist Party in Poland, and that support will lead to attacking Ukraine, who must then ask the Russian military for help, flustering new Russian President Zhanin. The hope is that Zhanin’s foreign backers will cut ties with him, forcing Russia to care for itself, and leading to a reformation of the Soviet Union, with Russia back in charge.

However, we get the whole plan, which as any story fan knows means something is going to go wrong. Rarely does the audience get told the full plan unless the writer plans to have things go wrong even if the goal is met. I’m betting the goal won’t be met because that would be a terrible end to this story. Meanwhile, we learn that the bagel shop is part of Shovich’s international mob and part of a plan to keep the US out of things. The goal is to attack a civilian target, knowing that going after a government or military target would mean they’d go after them. Shovich uses this to keep the FBI from spending their budget going after them to continue committing local crimes and I guess he feels like the local police will be easy to handle, while President Laurence (apparently still president after the last book but with an election year coming up, thus placing this story during his first term) gets to look like a hero when the terrorist is caught, a sacrifice to keep the plan going and keep the US from getting involved.

You, sir, are an idiot.

Granted, this was long before either World Trade Center bombing, the latter of which was more successful and brought down the Twin Towers. While the al-Qaeda did target the Pentagon and failed to get the White House thanks to a sacrifice by the passengers on that flight, it’s the Twin Towers, a civilian target, that people talk about. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor the targets were all military, though the reasons to later bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also based on military rather than civilian targeting I’ve heard. That got us into the war. Meanwhile, when Iran took planes hostage Reagan didn’t go to war with Iran, but did do that whole affair later with the contras that was rather controversial to the American public. The basic idea is not “don’t attack the government”, it’s “don’t attack the United States Of America on its own shores”.

Again, not a military strategist or a geopolitical expert. I just don’t see that going the way he things. Mobsters are not terrorists, and both are handled differently. If Op-Center or someone actually competent figures out what’s going on…I kid, because Op-Center is already aware of the transmission to the bagel shop and know something is up…it’s his mob on the line. Meanwhile, Dogin isn’t sure about allying himself with the crime boss even if he does need the money, and wasn’t happy about Shovich’s comment about the reward being Shovich as the new Minister Of The Interior. Plus when he claimed Ukrainian president Vesnek was on their side he turned away, meaning he may not be on their side. I can already see the parts where this can go wrong, and we still have a lot of book to go through.

Next time we go to New York City to see what the bagel shop is up to. It’s too early in the book for a major loss for the villains, but maybe we can see more ways for this to go horribly wrong for our bad guys.